Action shots

Does action photography just mean
taking photos of your local high school football team kicking a ball
around the field? Not at all! Action photography involves taking
pictures of anything mid-action.

Even those ugly pictures you get of
your relatives talking half-way through their sentence are action
shots. They're just not very enthralling ones. Action photography can include things
like someone jumping over an obstacle, throwing something, running,
spinning, riding a bike, swimming, etc...

As a general rule of thumb, the more
exciting the action is, the more exciting the picture will be. No matter how
good that photo of your sister drizzling noodles into her mouth is,
it's probably not going to be as exciting as a picture of a guy doing a back-flip
over a pit of fire is it?

Action photography has always given me
great enjoyment and even upped the ante when taking 'snapshots' of
friends on my many adventures and outings. If it's raining, we don't
stayed huddled in the car until it stops. We get out and take
pictures, jumping in the biggest puddle we can possibly find.

Arms,
legs, and water fly everywhere, and I get to capture it on camera. It
doesn't matter if we get soaked and miserably wet, because I have an
image that makes it look even more fun than it actually was!

The image here was taken when my brother and his friends decided to make a large bike ramp facing the ocean on the jetty at the boat harbour. The boys then proceeded to jump their bikes off it, landing in the ocean and pulling the bikes in with a rope. They got quite a bit of air, perfect for good action shots.

There are three very important things
for action photography. These things are essential to capturing a
great shot.

1: Shutter Speed.

What's the
point of an action shot if everything is blurry because they were
moving? Keep your shutter speed as high as possible to get photos
that freeze the movement. The faster the shutter speed, the crisper
the picture. If you know how to use your camera on Manual, TV
(Canon), or S (Nikon), then I highly suggest using those modes as
they will give you the best control over your shutter speed.

2: Focus.

So you've frozen the moment, but
the picture is focused on the background and your subject is blurry.
Oops! Make sure your camera focuses on the subject being
photographed. It can be a bit tricky focusing on a moving object, so
the best options are to use a fast focusing lens and predict where your subject is going to be when you snap the
picture. Unless you're choosing to focus on something particular like
a foot kicked up towards the camera, always aim to focus on the eyes. Another good idea is to set your camera's automatic focusing system to AI Servo.

3: Movement.

Practice predicting when the
movement in the photo is going to be most interesting. If you're
photographing children dancing, photos of them swaying side to side
with their hips probably won't be very interesting. Better to wait
until they do that move where they throw their hands up and jump,
capturing them in mid-air. Don't put your camera down while you're
waiting though! I've missed many amazing photograph opportunities due
to that. Always be ready.